Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China ( Image credits Wikimedia commons/ Angelica Rivera de Pena) Nearly three decades after  ‪#‎ Chinese‬  leader Deng Xiaoping famously instructed his diplomats to "be good at maintaining a low profile and never claim leadership," a new generation of rulers has made it clear that they're ready to shed the humility and show off their country's rising military and political power. From Southeast Asian waters that may hold billions of barrels of oil to uninhabited islands in the  ‪#‎ East‬  #China  ‪#‎ Sea‬ , #China has stepped into territorial disputes with neighbors including  ‪#‎ Japan‬ , South  ‪#‎ Korea‬  and the ‪#‎ Philippines‬  — and in some cases, some would say, provoked them. At the same time, Beijing has pledged to build what it says will be a new security framework for Asia, replacing U.S.-dominated alliances that have defined the post-World War II period. "We should work for a new archite

Liaoning (16), Chinese Aircraft carrier ( Credits in the image) According to a June 5 report in the  Strait Times   ( and a timely tweet by @RobertCObrien ) the People’s Republic of China will allegedly add some major firepower to its armed forces. While we have seen many of these reports over the last several years, one thing should seem quite obvious by now — take it with a grain of salt, Flashpoints readers. According to the report , China is “preparing to deploy three new carrier battle groups (CBG) in the world’s oceans, with the first expected just three years from now.” The Singapore-based newspaper seems to have sourced the information from the latest GI Zhou newsletter. The newsletter is published in Australia and “specializes in forensic analysis of China’s defense-related publications and news sources.” The People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, already maintains one refurbished aircraft carrier, the  Liaoning , which was commissioned in November 2012 after a mu

F-35 ( Image Courtesy- Wikimedia commons/Author- Andy Wolfe) According to  Want China Times , China’s nationalistic  Global Times  has reported that China’s currently military capabilities would be unable to combat the F-35.  Want China Times  cites the  Global Times  as saying that in a hypothetical aircraft carrier battle between the U.S. and China, China’s current carrier-based fighter, the J-15, would be unable to compete with American and allied F-35s. “In an attack on the Liaoning the F-35 could carry joint strike missiles developed in Norway, which have a range of 290 kilometers. The J-15, on the other hand, could carry two YJ8-3 anti-missiles with a range of only 180 km,” the report cited  Global Times  as saying. It continues: “In terms of radar technology, the U.S. has the clear upper hand with its AN/APG-81 AESA radar developed by Northrop Grumman, which has a thousand transceivers with the ability to simultaneously search for 23 moving targets, including 19 targets

Peoples Liberation Army, China ( Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and US Army)  China's navy commissioned 17 new warships last year, the most of any nation. In a little more than a decade, it's expected to have three aircraft carriers, giving it more clout than ever in a region of contested seas and festering territorial disputes. Those numbers testify to huge increases in defense spending that have endowed China with the largest military budget behind the United States and fueled an increasingly large and sophisticated defense industry. While Beijing still lags far behind the U.S. in both funding and technology, its spending boom is attracting new scrutiny at a time of severe cuts in U.S. defense budgets that have some questioning Washington's commitments to its Asian allies, including some who have lingering disputes with China. Beijing's newfound military clout is one of many issues confronting President Barack Obama as he visits the region this week. Wash

PLA Tank ( Pic courtesy Wikimedia Commons and Dan, The Author) One of Washington’s leading members of Congress, J. Randy Forbes, and a brilliant analyst, Elbridge Colby, sound the alarm. They  believe that China has made precipitous gains  against the United States’ military power and that the U.S. must urgently increase its defense efforts to maintain its superiority. Forbes and Colby assert that “the balance of military power in the Asia-Pacific writ large is under serious and growing pressure from China’s military-modernization efforts,” and the U.S. “edge in technology … is eroding.” They caution that China’s military buildup poses “critical” challenges “to achieving U.S. political-military objectives in the areas that have traditionally been part of our defense umbrella,” namely “challenges to [the United States’] military superiority in the crucial air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains.” Most alarming, Forbes and Colby hold that failure to act could have “tremendous str

The Chinese have fired yet another salvo in its cloak and dagger strategic games directed at India. It has gone totally unnoticed in the Indian media but for the last few days, both the  Peoples' Daily  of China and the  China Daily along with their Indian Sinophile minions have been crowing about the latest Chinese “smart” success in invading India's international strategic space. By itself, the current Chinese salvo seems pretty innocuous but it has far reaching consequences. The stapled visa issue also started as an innocuous action by low level visa officers in the Chinese embassy. One has to read in between the tea leaves to ascertain Chinese motives. By these aggressive containment efforts, China has proved once again that it is not a friend or an ally of India but at worst a determined and hostile strategic adversary and at best a peer competitor. There is a very clear cut pattern to Chinese geo-political endeavours. China is behaving as a classical hegemon that

Image credits- Reuters/Eric De Castro On March 18, China and ASEAN gathered in Singapore to pursue consultations on a  Code of Conduct  (COC) for the South China Sea, alongside talks on the implementation of the Declaration of Conduct (DOC). The gathering came at a time of rising preoccupation over a perceived creeping assertiveness by China in pursuing its maritime claims. Just one week before, Manila and Beijing experienced  another diplomatic row , after Chinese Coast Guard vessels barred the resupply of Philippine marines based in the Spratly Islands. In broader terms, several high-profile developments have hinted that China is becoming more inclined to consider the threat and use of force as its preferred vehicle for influence in the South China Sea. China’s considerable maritime build-up has been accompanied by the merging of its maritime agencies into a unified Coast Guard unit, the publication of maps with a  10-dash line  covering Chinese claims in the South China Sea,

Image courtesy- Wikimedia and the author In April 2003, the Chinese Navy decided to put a large group of its best submarine talent on the same boat as part of an experiment to synergize its naval elite. The result? Within hours of leaving port, the Type 035 Ming III class submarine  sank  with all hands lost. Never having fully recovered from this maritime disaster, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council  never  to have conducted an operational patrol with a nuclear missile submarine.............. http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/chinas-deceptively-weak-and-dangerous-military/?allpages=yes

http://indrus.in/articles/2012/03/21/high_sea_indian_elephant_versus_chinese_dragon_15211.html

http://manilatimes.net/ph-sea-luzon-strait-key-to-china-nuke-ambitions/50017/

http://www.voanews.com/content/japan-china-territorial-tension-rising-over-unmanned-drones/1780574.html

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/11/01/1251738/world-must-oppose-china-maritime-claims-us-congress-leader